Grants

The current policy of The Sabre Club Charitable Foundation (the “Charity”) is to primarily fund activities that are not usually funded by other bodies and which are in line with the charity’s objects.

Grants could cover, among others, the following activities:

The costs of sabre specific organised group training at senior level

Competition entry fees for teams

Meeting part or all of the costs of unfunded coaches to accompany teams at junior and senior levels at overseas competitions

Sponsoring sabre training courses for sabre coaches to aid them in improving the sabre coaching standards

Sponsoring sabre coaching courses for elite sabre fencers and promising non elite fencers to help them transition from competitive fencing to coaching where they have demonstrated a commitment to coaching

Sponsoring the provision of high quality sabre referees to local competitions in order to provide training for upcoming referees and to raise the standards of the competition to encourage greater participation

Grants will normally be used for activities not funded by other bodies In rare circumstances grants may be provided to individuals directly

Applications process

If you would like to apply for a grant please send an initial outline of your proposal to grants@tsccf.uk You might find the proforma here useful.

The initial outline should contain brief details on timing, possible cost, the intended participants of the activity and whether any other funding applications have been, or are planned, for the same activity. If there is the case then please set out to whom and when the application was made or is planned.

Receipt of your application will be acknowledged.

Once the outline proposal has been received it will be reviewed by the trustees and you will be asked for more details or we will let you know that the proposal has been rejected.

Proposals will be evaluated in relation to the relative impact they are likely to have on advancing the Charity’s objects, which are:

The promotion of community participation in healthy recreation by the provision of financial and informational assistance to enable members of the public to participate in the sport of sabre fencing at all levels. At least initially there may be insufficient funds to meet all reasonable requests and the trustees will have to decide on which proposals to prioritise.

The decision making process

Proposals will be assessed in the first instance for whether they meet the objects of the organisation. If they do not, they will be rejected.

If it is not clear then further clarification may be requested if considered appropriate.

Proposals received which meet the objects will then be costed up by the trustee entrusted with managing the finances of the Charity and distributed to all trustees.

The trustees will then discuss and decide whether the initial proposal has merit and is in line with the objects.

Where more than one proposal has been received and funds are limited, the proposals will be ranked and prioritised with regard to the trustees’ evaluation of their relative impact and also their affordability in light of the current budget.

A reply will be agreed and any request for further information will be agreed in principle along with a draft timetable for receiving the detail and reaching a decision on the grant.

Discussions can be undertaken electronically and by phone as well as in person. In all cases the discussions will be summarised and distributed for approval before the final reply is sent to the applicant.

In some cases an application may be approved conditional on the Charity raising sufficient funds to meet the request.

In making a grant decision a number of factors have to be taken into consideration by the trustees.

Establishing charitable need

To establish charitable need the trustees must assess a number of factors formulated as questions below:

Does the activity further the object of promoting community participation in sabre fencing?

If the grant is not made, will the activity still go ahead?

If the activity is related to a competition does providing the grant make the competition more accessible to the community or will it simply increase profits for the organisers, in which case it would not be appropriate to make the grant.

Does the provision of the grant help to increase the standard of fencing or improve the experience of fencing at that level and so encourage greater or wider participation?

Does the provision of the grant allow activities which are beneficial to the community to be undertaken which would otherwise not take place?

Ensuring any potential private benefit to individuals is a legitimate individual consequence

If an individual is being supported with a grant, for instance a grant towards gaining a British Fencing recognised coaching qualification, care has to be taken to ensure the community benefits and the individual only benefits incidentally.

In order to ensure this the trustees will assess the need for the individual to become a coach and the expected positive impact on the availability of good qualified coaches in the community.

Help can be given at any level but the need for support becomes less obvious the higher the qualification being sought.

At the basic coaching level, the funding of a course for elite fencers transitioning to coaching would generally be viewed as beneficial to the community. The fact that the individual would gain a qualification is incidental as without it they would not be able to benefit the community in a safe and legitimate manner in accordance with the standards, including safeguarding, set out by British Fencing. Only British Fencing recognised qualifications can be supported.

The form of grant can either be to the individual or, if feasible, by direct payment to the course provider on behalf of named participants.

The same criteria apply to grants to support referee qualifications as to coaching with the clear understanding that qualifying as a referee brings only little benefit to the individual but brings very large benefits to the community as sabre fencing requires a high standard of refereeing to make it an attractive sport. Too many young and old fencers are discouraged by feeling cheated or very upset due to poor refereeing by referees who are either not qualified at all or not sufficiently experienced or up to date for the level they have been asked to referee at. Therefore help with costs to attract good referees and also to run referee courses during a competition generally meet the criteria.

Where a competition has been long established and known to be profitable care must be taken to ensure that a requested grant will benefit the community and not simply increase the profits from the competition.

Grants to clubs

The trustees must assess whether a club applying for a grant meets the criteria to be categorised as a charitable sports club. To meet the criteria the club should:

       i.        Engage in sports that promote physical health or fitness;

      ii.        Be open to anyone who wants to join, regardless of ability;

     iii.        Be open to all and those in poverty are not precluded from joining or playing as membership or hire fees are not reasonable;

     iv.        Any special clothing or equipment is, where possible, provided free, or at a reduced rate, by the club or is affordable;

      v.        Coaches are suitably qualified to deliver coaching/training;

     vi.        More or less competitive players are, as far as reasonably practicable, treated even-handedly for access to facilities and other purposes;

    vii.        No payments or private benefits are given to players/participants;

   viii.        No separate and distinct benefits (for example, social facilities) are provided for non-playing members; and

     ix.        Refreshment and social facilities are provided only where they are ancillary to participation in healthy recreation.

Disbursement of grants

Wherever possible grants should be paid to the supplier of the services directly as opposed to individuals or clubs.

All payments should be made on presentation of suitable evidence that the expense has been incurred or will be incurred.

Where payments of a grant are made in advance of services or goods being procured by the club or individual the trustees must ensure that evidence of the cost is provided in a timely manner after disbursement of the grant funds.

Post grant verification

A record of all the backing documentation for each grant will be kept and reconciled to the amounts disbursed.

Where grants relate to activities feedback will be sought from participants to ensure the grant was spent as intended and that the quality of any goods or services provided were of the expected standard.

The benefit derived from grants will be assessed by seeking active feedback from the members of the community who were to benefit from the grants.